As January 23 was drawing near there was excitement among the members of Bondhu Mahal, because this is the day when we Bondhus celebrate Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s birthday by organizing a blood donation camp. We wanted to take this celebration to a new height and therefore the Bondhus wanted it to be different.

How a blood donation camp can be different? This was the question that was raised time and again in every meeting.

Can we invite Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav this time, one of the Bondhus asked?.  A good idea! CM’s presence will obviously add sheen to out programme. Everyone agreed. CM’s secretariat was informed and within no time Chief Minister Mr Yadav agreed to inaugurate our camp. Once it was made clear that CM would be our chief guest there was spring in the feet of Bondhus.

Now, the big hurdle was of arranging finances. Different agencies were approached and Sulabh International agreed to sponsor our camp. Then there was our Daya Shankar Patwa who gave us financial support. The message from our sponsors was that when CM is coming, the function should be the best. “Do not worry about finances. Make it one of the best,” Patwa Sahib phoned up to say.

Once we had money in our pocket preparations started in full swing. Last year 58 donors had donated blood and this time we wanted to surpass that figure. All Bondhus started working in full zeal. The young brigade of Sachin, Abhijeet, Prateek, Kaushik and of course Papiya spread the word among their friends about blood donation camp. Then there were Sudhir Sehgal who motivated his friends to donate blood and even our B.N. Dey da motivated his friends and colleagues of LIC to donate blood.

On January 21Chief Minister informed that he would not be able to attend the Blood Donation camp because of Samajwadi Party’s rally on the same day in Varanasi. But he was kind enough to depute his cabinet colleague and Jail Minister Rajendra Chaudhry on his behalf. This was a kind gesture.

A day before the D’ day the happenings made us nervous. On January 22 it started raining since afternoon. The Met had predicted drizzle, but it poured. We were nervous. What will happen if does not stop the next day. With prayers on our lips we went to sleep.

Next day, God had answered our prayers. The sky was clear. Within a jiffy the tents were set up; banners were displayed and we were ready by 9 for the Doctors of Ram Manohar Lohia to start blood donation camp. The camp started in time. At 11 am Chief Gurst Rajendra Chaudhry arrived. In his speech he assured help to Bondhu Mahal in future. 

Amid this there was a stream of donors and when the camp ended by evening 65 donors had donated blood.A memorable day when we proved again the we Bondhus have the capacity to turn the things around.

Glimpses

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